Maybe a mention of Auguste Maquet might be apt..

I was looking for this audiobook. Thank you very much for posting this file.

I see now why Alexandre Dumas' novels in my daughter's jr. high school library (many long years ago) were all abridged. I watched Game of Thrones from start to finish, much of it more than once, loving it all, and never seeing violence that even approached the sadistic cruelty, the vicious hammer-blow details, the gratuitous prolonging of things, that I endured in the first 4 chapters of The Black Tulip. I stopped being in suspense halfway through the 4-chapter scene and hollered at the story being read to me, "Get ON with this! Those two men are still in the same danger, nothing changes, it goes around, but then it rolls back again, full circle, repeatedly! What is the hold-up for the love of God!"
I've never experienced from book or movie the carrying of a thing so far beyond the range of what is needed to propel a fine adventure story forward, while making sure the bad thing that happens and just how very bad it was is clear and effective. If I'd been reading it, I'd have known where to stop. An audiobook is trickier. I listened way too long. I should have heeded the warning I was getting from how long it was taking to get to the point, and turned it off sooner. Furthermore, historically speaking, I doubt the accuracy of the awful scene. I think it's almost entirely out of Dumas' head, no other source, and that those first chapters of The Black Tulip aren't even as "realistic" as The Man in the Iron Mask or The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandre Dumas, ageless, beloved storyteller, but no historian. He's been plenty criticized for overuse of artistic license (for a buck).
I listened no more after chapter 4, so my opinion can't do the job of a review, but the violence in these chapters is a full story's worth for me, with tons to spare.
Take warning:
"Good heavens, Monseigneur, what is going on there?" the officer whispered.
"Something very terribly, to a certainty," replied the other.
You could say that.
(The READER was superb!)

The summary above unfortunately gives away the ending - don't read it! :)
This little-known work of Dumas should be read as often as The Count of Monte Cristo or The Three Musketeers. It's suspenseful, harrowing, and very satisfying. Set during the ascendancy of William of Orange in the midst of tulip fever, one doesn't know whether William is a good guy or a bad guy. But we do know that Cornelius is the hero, and Rosa is the heroine. And the queen of all is The Black Tulip.
Excellently read. Highly recommended.